The review examines evolving ideas and approaches to rural development internationally from the 1950's to 2000s. It examines how the history of rural development in South Africa is embedded in the larger narrative of colonial land dispossession and the implementation of apartheid policies…

Human activities have resulted in unprecedented phenomena and severe impacts for the 21st century such as land degradation, natural resources scarcity, climate change, and a rapid decline in biodiversity. These alterations engender secondary effects such as political conflicts, disputes over…

The year of 2008 marked the beginning of a new phase at ICARDA: the full implementation of the Center's Strategic Plan 2007-2016, and a renewed commitment to addressing the global challenges of food security, poverty alleviation and climate change in the dry areas. It was also a year of…

Developing countries, as a group, are the ones most threatened by the hydrological impacts of global climate change. Water is a critical resource in development, and it is affected by climate change in multiple, complex ways ? through changes in temperature and rising sea levels, changes in…

Many adaptation measures urgently needed in agriculture today as a consequence of climate change concern water in agriculture and were already devised and implemented in the 1980s as a part of rural development activities. However, most of the experience and knowledge have sunk without trace.…

The world food crisis has spurred foreign direct investments (FDI) into arable land in developing countries. While significant financial inflows into agricultural sectors could be beneficial on a global scale, it could negatively affect local livelihoods. This article provides an overview of the…

A team of German and Spanish scientists has genetically modified a maize plant in a way that markedly increases the level of three vitamins in the maize kernels. The level of betacarotene, the precursor to vitamin A, was raised by a factor of 169, the level of vitamin C increased six-fold and…

In Germany, the debate about the security/development nexus is gathering pace. The reality of life in crisis regions, the management of post-conflict situations and the precautionary anticipation of demands arising in the context of crisis management all require the highest level of coordination…

This is the first of a series of consultations on the human rights challenges and dilemmas involved in the
acquisition and use of land – held individually or collectively - for private or state-owned business and
economic purposes. The aim of the series of consultations is to develop…

This study evaluates the level of access to justice and the quality of the justice rendered in Rwandese land dispute resolution and marks pathways to improvements in the benefits that those seeking justice may derive from the system. The analytical concept of proximity of justice provides the…

This article examines the evolution of policy recommendations concerning rural land issues since the formulation of the World Bank’s “Land Reform Policy Paper” in 1975. That paper set out three guiding principles: the desirability of owner-operated family farms; the need for markets to permit…

20 years ago, Tim Berners-Lee invented the World Wide Web. For his next project, he's building a web for open, linked data that could do for numbers what the Web did for words, pictures, video: unlock our data and reframe the way we use it together.